A kinetic study on the thermal degradation of polypropylene/attapulgite nanocomposites

In this work, a polypropylene (PP)/attapulgite nanocomposite was prepared via melt blending using a novel organically modified attapulgite (OATP). The thermal stability of PP/clay nanocomposites compared to pure PP was examined in nitrogen using a kinetic analysis. The kinetic parameters, including reaction order and activation energy ( A and E a ) of the degradation process were determined by applying the Flynn-Wall-Ozawa method using derivative thermogravimetric (DTG) curves. At the same time, the effect of organic attapulgite on thermal decomposition of polypropylene matrix was analyzed. As a result, PP/OATP nanocomposites have slightly higher degradation temperature than that of the pure PP. The values of the reaction order of PP and PP/OATP nanocomposites are close to 1 in the nonisothermal degradation process. The activation energies of PP/OATP nanocomposites also increase slightly compared to the pure PP, thus it is suggested that the org-attapulgite has little effect on the thermal stability of the pure PP.